War Criminal Deported To Haiti Without Appeal

A convicted Haitian war criminal arrested two weeks ago at his Orlo Vista home has been sent back to the politically volatile island over the protests of his Orlando attorney.

Jean-Claude Duperval was deported Monday even though his lawyer said Duperval's appeals have not been exhausted.

Attorney Shannon Baruch claims he told federal officials an appeal was in the works, but that information was either overlooked or ignored. Baruch said he learned of Duperval's deportation late Monday night from his client's family.

"I said `How can that be?' " Baruch said. "We still had time to appeal."

Immigration officials said they would move quickly to remove Duperval from the country. On Tuesday, they defended the deportation, saying they were under no obligation to keep him here.

No stay of deportation, they said, had been granted.

"Congress has spoken definitively on that," said Dan Vara, the chief counsel of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Orlando. "You not only have to seek a stay, but you have to actually obtain it."

"Until you get the stay order," he said, "they can put him on the plane."

Baruch has asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to review Duperval's case. He has also asked the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees to intervene.

In 2000, a Haitian court found Duperval and more than 30 other high-ranking military officials guilty in connection with the 1994 Raboteau massacre.

In that attack, soldiers descended on the port city of Raboteau and killed more than two dozen political opponents. Though Duperval was not accused of participating in or ordering the attack, he was convicted of being complicit in the murders.

Immigration judges said given Duperval's position in the military -- he was second-in-command and briefly served as army chief -- it was impossible to believe he knew nothing of the attacks.

In fact, prosecutors said he and other leading officials encouraged human-rights abuses.

Duperval and his family say he is innocent and that his conviction was politically motivated.

Baruch asked what's the point of filing an appeal or a request for stay if asylum seekers can be deported before those motions are heard?

"They've completely nullified the appeals' process," Baruch said.

Duperval was expected to be taken to prison upon arrival in Haiti.

He will likely seek a new trial, but Baruch is skeptical his client will be treated fairly.

In fact, in his letter to the United Nations, Baruch wrote that Duperval "has a well-founded fear for his life" if deported to Haiti. He claims Duperval has been threatened by supporters of the current administration in Haiti.

"He would be imprisoned for political reasons," Baruch's letter to the U.N. says, "and eventually be killed in prison by lethal injection without due process of law."

Baruch said with Duperval now out of the country, a U.N. intervention may be the best hope for his client.

If the United Nations steps in, Duperval's case may become uncomfortable for U.S. officials.

The United States allowed Duperval to enter the country in 1995 -- after Duperval helped U.S. forces re-install Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- and the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote a letter supporting him two years later.

"Throughout my association with General Duperval, I found him to be a loyal and faithful partner in U.S. efforts to restore democracy," wrote then Joint Chiefs' Chairman Henry H. Shelton. Duperval's request for asylum, he said, should be "given every possible consideration."